Report: Britain Considering Giving Skripals 'New Identities'

April 08, 2018 09:34 GMT

A composite file photo of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.

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Report: Britain Considering Giving Skripals 'New Identities'

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Britain's Sunday Times newspaper is reporting that the country is considering offering Russian former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter new identities and a new life in the United States to protect them from further attempts on their life.

Citing unnamed sources, the report published on April 8 said officials of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6, have discussed the plan with their counterparts of the CIA.

"They will be offered new identities," the newspaper quoted a source as saying.

"The obvious place to resettle them is America because they're less likely to be killed there and it's easier to protect them there under a new identity," it quoted another intelligence source as saying.

Britain's Foreign Office had no comment on the report, the Sunday Times said.

Former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia Skripal, were exposed to a potent nerve toxin and found unconscious on a bench in Salisbury, in southern England, on March 4.

Doctors at Salisbury District Hospital said on April 6 that the 66-year-old father was "improving rapidly and is no longer in a critical condition."

Yulia, 33, regained consciousness last week and, according to a British police statement issued on her on behalf, her strength "is growing daily."

Britain accuses Russian President Vladimir Putin's government of trying to kill them with a military-grade chemical substance known as novichok, which was developed in the Soviet Union.

Russia denies involvement in the poisoning, which has triggered a diplomatic crisis between Moscow and the West.